Stevante Clark appears in court for domestic violence charges

Stevante Clark appeared in Sacramento Superior Court for the first time Tuesday in his arraignment on charges related to an alleged domestic violence incident last month.

Clark, 27, stood charged with three felonies including battery likely to produce great bodily injury, assault by force likely to cause great bodily injury and corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant. Clark and his attorney, Keith Staten, wore masks during the proceeding which was conducted over a Zoom meeting to accommodate social distancing.

During the proceedings, Staten sought to have Clark’s cell phone returned which was presumably seized during his arrest, and Deputy District Attorney Rona Fillipini said it would need to be discussed but it is usually not released until after a case is closed.

According to the criminal complaint, the charges stem from a domestic violence incident against a woman on April 19.

The incident was reported to the Sacramento Police Department, which investigated for nearly a month before passing its investigation to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office.

Clark was arrested by Sacramento Police detectives on May 18 while carrying groceries into his mother’s North Sacramento home. In an exclusive interview with The Bee, Clark’s mother, Sequette Clark, said officers “targeted” her son and traumatized her younger daughter.

“Their blatant excessiveness displayed while arresting my son was shameful and traumatic,” she said. “My daughter and my mother were traumatized beyond belief.”

Clark has previously declined to comment on the allegations made against, telling The Bee last week, “We don’t want any children to be traumatized. I’m not the news, children being traumatized is the news.”

In a video published on his Facebook page following his release from jail, Clark said he would not talk about the case, adding it is “on the fake news because it’s fake news.”

He is scheduled to appear in court again June 9 at 8:30 a.m.

Clark was catapulted to national fame in 2018 after his brother, Stephon Clark, was killed by Sacramento Police officers in their grandparents’ backyard in Meadowview, and Clark took to the streets in protest.

Clark didn’t have a criminal record prior to March 2018. Less than a month after his brother died, he was in handcuffs after causing damage to a north Sacramento hotel room and put on a mental-health hold, which allows law enforcement personnel and some mental health providers to place a person under a 72-hour involuntary hold if the subject is deemed a danger to himself or others. He was later transferred to the Sacramento County Mental Health Treatment Center.

In a 2018 interview with The Sacramento Bee, Stevante called the experience “degrading.”

After he was released from the county’s mental health treatment center, he was arrested a second time after a days-long incident in Del Paso Heights in which he barricaded his street with trash cans and threatened neighbors and a roommate.

Clark’s case was resolved in mental health court, which allowed him to avoid a criminal record upon completion of a court-mandated program

Clark said at the time the experience was formative for him, and led to his motto “Everybody love Everybody.”

“I felt like people were coming at me with their own agendas,” Clark said. “It was hard for me to know what was authentic. ... A lot of people tried to help and do good things, and the ones I pushed away, I’ve apologized to and asked for forgiveness. And the ones that have stayed with me, I hope they don’t judge me on the past.”

Since then, Clark has become an advocate for police reform, helping propel AB 392 to law. The bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year is believed to be one of the toughest laws in the country regulating when police officers can use use deadly force.

He has made appearances across the state, and even spoke on a panel in Washington, D.C. with Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn at the Congressional Black Caucus’ Legislative Conference. He was featured in The Sacramento Bee’s documentary “S.A.C.” on the Stephon Clark shooting.

Clark is also a member of the city’s Measure U Community Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations for how the city should spend revenue from the Measure U sales tax increase voters approved in 2018.